


Can't Fight (This Feeling)

by saltwaterselkie



Series: Ineffable Husbands [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: At this point, BAMF Aziraphale (Good Omens), Before everything, First Impressions, First War, Garden of Eden, Hurt Aziraphale (Good Omens), Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Ineffable Idiots (Good Omens), M/M, Softie Crowley (Good Omens), The Ineffable Plan (Good Omens), War in Heaven (Good Omens), after all it is the First War, aziraphale's never killed anything, but he's Crowley as he should be, i know crowley would be crawly, lead balloons and whatnot, minor Beelzebub, minor Dagon, minor Gabriel, minor Hastur, minor Ligur, minor Michael, minor Uriel, surprisingly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-30
Updated: 2019-07-30
Packaged: 2020-07-26 03:30:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20037202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltwaterselkie/pseuds/saltwaterselkie
Summary: Aziraphale didn’t see Crowley during the War in Heaven. But Crowley saw Aziraphale.





	Can't Fight (This Feeling)

Gabriel fought with brute force, a powerhouse of angelic might whose greatest weapon was his staunch belief in his own invincibility. Michael fought like a dagger, crafty as an angel could be, whirling and slicing and always too fast to be caught unaware. Uriel fought with pure skill, matching their opponents in honorable combat and beating them on their own terms.

Aziraphale fought like a tidal wave. He swept through enemies with a flaming sword gifted by God Herself, a sword that elevated him beyond merely ethereal – when he fought, Aziraphale was the grace of God incarnate.

And while he struck down just as many demons as Gabriel or Michael or Uriel, there was one difference between Aziraphale and his counterparts, a difference that drew no attention precisely because he didn’t want it to. Divine justice was the pillar upon which he fought, a commonality between him and the other angels – but unlike their enemies, Aziraphale’s were not left on the ground with heads lolling to the side and eyes empty as delicate angel feet stepped over them.

Killing, Aziraphale would have claimed to his grave, was acceptable in the name of the greater good. In the name of the Great Plan. He might even have believed it when he said it. But regardless of how many claims he might make, the fact was that his sword danced at the edge of killing blows, never quite pushing his opponents into the final fall.

Crowley wasn’t fighting. Crowley was ducking and dodging away from blows at each chance he got, wondering how the hell he got roped into the losing side of a heavenly war. He tripped over a demon’s body, landed face-first next to a prostrate angel, and cursed. Not like anyone could stop him. He’d already been kicked out of Heaven, hadn’t he? Already fallen. What could a few choice words do about that?

He rolled over onto his back and just lay there for a moment. Crowley didn’t want to be _here_. He hadn’t signed up to try to stick it to the archangel Gabriel, literally. He was the worst, lowliest type of demon – nobody even cared enough about him to consider him their personal archenemy. Crowley supposed that wasn’t the worst happenstance in the world. Nobody would give him a second glance, here on the ground, watching the carnage.

And because he believed that, really and truly believed that he was worthless enough to be unnoticeable, it was true.

Gabriel didn’t notice Crowley as he stormed toward Beelzebub and slammed his sword down with the force of a thousand tornados and a dash of righteous fury onto the swarm of flies that rose to protect them. Michael didn’t notice Crowley as she darted under Hastur’s crazed strike and swept his feet out from under him in one clean move. Uriel didn’t notice Crowley as they fought Ligur stroke for stroke, parry-thrust-parry, one hand tucked behind their back.

And Aziraphale didn’t notice Crowley as he fought Dagon with that flaming sword, that sword flaming like anything that caught Crowley’s eye and drew his attention to the fight in the first place. To Crowley’s eyes, it was sun and shadow driving against each other. Crowley knew Dagon; thought he was a rather crass bloke, to tell the truth. But this angel, this angel who fought with his crinkles at the corners of his eyes and his eyes themselves as expressive as his words, calmly asking Dagon to put down the weapon and surrender – this angel was new.

“Dear fellow,” the angel said, pausing to focus as he blocked a strike that would’ve cleaved his head from his shoulders, “I beg of you to consider the implications,” another block, “of what you are doing.” He diverted Dagon’s blade to the side and tried a complex move to rid the demon of the sword. Crowley found himself, for the first time since he’d fallen, wishing an angel luck. He shook the thought out of his mind as soon as it came.

Dagon didn’t give the angel the favor of a reply. Instead, she growled, deep and low in her throat – an ugly sort of sound, one that reminded Crowley exactly who he’d been aligned with when he’d done something so innocuous as ask God a question. It made him painfully aware of the coal-black of the wings he kept tucked against his back, trying to forget they were there.

He was about to let something else catch his attention, about to look over to see how Gabriel and Beelzebub were getting on, when it happened. Uriel and their opponent had come too close to the angel and his; Dagon and the angel saw Uriel’s unprotected back at the same time.

Without hesitation, the angel stepped in between Uriel and Dagon, opening himself up to attack. Dagon’s grin caught on her face as she took the opportunity, striking a blow that would’ve killed the angel, _could’ve_ killed the angel, except for the fact that Crowley believed the angel’s sword would move to protect him just in time and somehow, miraculously, it did.

Dagon’s weapon sliced deep into the angel’s right leg, and he fell with a gasp, and Uriel had disarmed Ligur and was turning in one smooth movement to meet Dagon before the demon could take the advantage and deal the killing blow.

The angel was making a low hissing sound that made Crowley think of the first time he’d opened his mouth after falling, when it felt like he might never speak in his celestial voice again (and who knew? Perhaps he never would). But while Crowley’s first hiss had been one of despair, the angel’s was of a much more simple feeling: pain.

Crowley wondered if the angel had ever felt it before. He knew _he_ hadn’t, before he fell, hadn’t even understood the concept of physical anguish until he felt the white of his wings burning away and the brand of a serpent’s mark scorching into his cheek. He felt a strange sort of sympathy for the angel. After all, they’d both fallen – though not the same distance, symbolically or materially.

There was another angel’s body lying between them, blocking the angel from Crowley’s view, but he liked to think that if it wasn’t there, he might’ve struck up a conversation with the angel. A sort of “sorry you’re bleeding, but that move you did with the flaming sword was rather neat, hello, I’m a newly-fallen demon, nice to make your acquaintance.” Come to think of it, that might not have been the best first impression to make. Not that Crowley was worried about first impressions. Of course he wasn’t worried about first impressions, he was a _demon_, wasn’t he? By all accounts, he should’ve stood up, taken over from Dagon, and finished the job himself.

But… but he didn’t. It was more dastardly, he decided, to let the angel moan in agony for a few moments more, suffer the anguish of a war wound. Definitely more of a demonic action to _refuse_ to put the angel out of his pain. And if the angel happened to be picked up by ethereal medics and carted away while Crowley watched with newly-slitted eyes, well, that wasn’t something Crowley couldn’t have _anticipated_, you see, and it _certainly_ wasn’t something Beelzebub and the others would punish him for, once they were all back in the dank depths of Hell licking their wounds. They’d be to busy planning to win the next one, not lamenting that Crowley hadn’t done away with one more angel on the battlefield. And besides, it wasn’t like he’d ever see the angel again.

Except it turned out the dead angel and the demon Crowley had been hunkering down next to had been battling each other. Except Crowley soon received a special commendation for the angel’s demise, and it could’ve have been just any ordinary angel, couldn’t it, but no, it was a bloody _cherub_, second only to seraphim, and suddenly demons like Dagon and Hastur and Ligur were staring at Crowley with jealousy that by all rights should’ve been directed at a demon who’d actually _done_ something. Except Crowley was congratulated, and Crowley was hated, and Crowley was also sent up to the Garden of Eden to accomplish the first temptation in the history of humanity as a _reward_ for a veteran’s status he hadn’t even bloody _earned_.

And of course, of course the angel of the Eastern Gate had to be _Crowley’s_ angel. Couldn’t be just some random principality. No. That same angel, with the golden-blonde curls and the ghosts of laughter etched into his face and a limp that didn’t show in the earthly body he wore like a precious possession. Even though Crowley could feel that the limp should’ve been there, a mark of battle never truly erased.

Crowley did his tempting. He watched Eve and Adam bite into that apple (it must’ve been delicious – everything forbidden seemed to be) and told himself what he was feeling wasn’t empathy at _all_. And then… and then…

The angel looked so lonely, standing up there, and Crowley figured he might as well start up a conversation. Go into it with low expectations, of course, but he needed to test the waters. See what this angel was all about. For purely scientific reasons, obviously.

He expected the angel’s first reaction to the appearance of a demon beside him to be an icy glare or a “begone with you, foul scum” or something of the sort. But when Crowley stood there in his bare feet and spread his wings and said conspiratorially, “well, that went down like a lead balloon,” the angel just looked… _flustered._

Crowley didn’t understand it. At least, not until the conversation came to the angel’s flaming sword, that beautiful sword that had seemed a natural extension of his arm, and Crowley learned that the angel had bloody _given it away_.

That was when he knew that what he’d seen on the battlefield hadn’t been a fluke. That there might – just possibly – be more to this angel than the do-gooder nonsense Crowley felt he was bound to abhor. It was a feeling that started deep in his gut and spread all the way to the tips of his demonic red hair.

It was also a feeling that told him, when the first rain on earth began, to shuffle towards Aziraphale.

And Crowley wasn’t surprised at all when his angel, without even thinking about it, protected him with an upraised wing.


End file.
